This invention relates to the refinishing of wood floors. More particularly, the invention relates to a product, and a method of its use, for refinishing a wood floor without the need for sanding.
Hardwood floors have been employed in quality housing and offices for more than 150 years. To improve the ability of the surface of the flooring to withstand wear and tear and also to make it attractive in appearance, the raw wood is subjected to smoothing and finishing steps. Nonetheless, over time, even the protected surface of the floor degrades. Accordingly, refinishing of wood floors is a necessary task. Traditionally, refinishing has been considered a relatively messy and time consuming undertaking, often left to the professional.
The process of refinishing has historically included sanding to prepare the surface to accept a new coat. Refinishing then typically involves applying sealants, varnishes, stains, shellacs and waxes to provide the desired appearance. Today, there are machines which will do some of these tasks, for example, sanding machines to drive a belt, circular disc or an oscillating rectangle of sandpaper. Buffing machines are made to provide the same basic motions to a pad of stiff fibers which function to abrade the surface more gently than sandpaper. A typical combination and order of these steps might be i) to hand scrape or rough sand a raw wood floor; ii) to sand by machine with a medium grit sandpaper; iii) to sand by hand with a fine grit sandpaper; iv) to remove all dust; v) to apply a coat of sealant and allow it to dry; vi) to buff the surface; vii) to remove all dust; and viii) to apply a coat of varnish or shellac.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,589 teaches a modification to the above procedure wherein the floor is smoothed and cleaned with a rotating buffing pad having a strip of fine grit sandpaper adhered to the buffing pad, followed by buffing without the sandpaper being present, and then cleaning the floor of all dust by vacuuming and by wiping with a dampened rag. Thereafter, a finish comprised of an aqueous dispersion of urethane and acrylic polymers is applied.
Obviously, the sanding requirements of this process are time consuming and messy with respect to the creation of significant quantities of dust. In addition, sanding can be a difficult task for the non-professional floor refinisher. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system for refinishing wood floors which does not require sanding to remove the prior finish.
The present invention relates to a three component system for refinishing of wood floors. According to one embodiment of the invention, a floor refinishing kit is provided which facilitates the preparation of an old finish for the application of a new finish without the requirement of sanding. The floor refinishing system of the present invention comprises a kit including three floor treatment compositions. A first composition is comprised of an aqueous polar solvent. Preferably, the aqueous polar solvent will have a pH above about 10 and more preferably above about 12. Most preferably, the aqueous polar solvent will include an active ingredient in excess of at least about 2.0% by weight. Particularly preferred active ingredients are alkali metasilicates, orthophosphates, and mixtures thereof. The second component of the kit comprises a residue removal and surface softening formulation, preferably comprised of water and a glycol ether. The third component of the kit comprises the finish, preferably a water based finish including urethane and acrylic polymers or copolymers and a crosslinking agent.